Friction Stir Welding of Aluminium Alloy AA5754 to Steel DX54
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Aalto University School of Engineering Department of Engineering Design and Production Hao Wang Friction Stir Welding of Aluminium Al- loy AA5754 to Steel DX54: Lap Joints with Conventional and New Solu- tion Thesis submitted as a partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Technology. Espoo, October 27, 2015 Supervisor: Prof. Pedro Vila¸ca Advisors: Tatiana Minav Ph.D. Aalto University School of Engineering ABSTRACT OF Department of Engineering Design and Production MASTER'S THESIS Author: Hao Wang Title: Friction Stir Welding of Aluminium Alloy AA5754 to Steel DX54: Lap Joints with Conventional and New Solution Date: October 27, 2015 Pages: 100 Major: Mechanical Engineering Code: IA3027 Supervisor: Professor Pedro Vila¸ca Advisors: Tatiana Minav Ph.D. The demand for joining of aluminum to steel is increasing in the automotive industry. There are solutions based on Friction Stir Welding (FSW) implemented to join these two dissimilar metals but these have not yet resulted in a reliable joint for the automotive industrial applications. The main reason is the brittle intermetallic compounds (IMCs) that are prone to form in the weld region. The objective of this thesis was to develop and test an innovative overlap joint concept, which may improve the quality of the FSW between aluminum alloy AA5754-H22 (2 mm) and steel DX54 (1.5 mm) for automotive applications. The innovative overlap joint concept consists of an interface with a wave shape produced on the steel side. The protrusion part of the shape will be directly processed by the tip of the probe with the intention of improving the mechanical resistance of the joint due to localized heat generation, extensive chemically active surfaces and extra mechanical interlocking. The innovative overlap joint concept was tested with three different travel speeds and axial forces. The welds were evaluated by visual inspection, microstructure observation and mechanical tests. Conventional overlap joints concept were produced to enable the evaluation of the efficiency of the innovative concept. Furthermore, multi-pass welds, with 2 and 3 passes, for both overlap joint concepts were conducted to verify the improvement of microstructure and mechanical performance. With a single-pass weld the conventional overlap joint concept presented higher strength than the innovative concept. The main mechanisms governing this result were the formation of IMCs and higher reduction of effective thickness in the aluminium alloy sheet for the innovative lap joint concept. The multi-pass welds with 2 passes have shown the best tensile shear strength for both overlap joint concepts, about 50 % efficiency in relation to the aluminium alloy base material. One issue affecting the results is the fact that the method applied to produce the pre-weld deformation in the steel sheet, at the contact interface, did not yield the originally planned geometric shape for the innovative overlap joint concept. Keywords: Friction stir welding, Dissimilar joints, Aluminium alloy, Steel, Lap joint, Intermetallic compounds Language: English 2 Acknowledgements This thesis is a development project driven by Professor Pedro Vila¸caat the Laboratory of Engineering Materials at Aalto University School of Engineer- ing. I would like to thank Professor Pedro Vila¸cafor his support and the opportunity for this interesting work. I am grateful for my instructor, Ta- tiana Minav, for their assistance and supports. I am also thankful for all the support that I have had during this thesis from Gon¸caloSorger, Topi Taavitsainen, Jari Hellgren, Kim Widell, Teemu Sarikka and Laura Tiainen. This project is a great experience and learning process for me. I would like to thank all the participating coworkers for making my work as fluent as possible. Lastly, I am grateful to my parent for their encouragement which helped me complete this project. Many Thanks. Espoo, October 27, 2015 Hao Wang 3 Abbreviations and Acronyms AHSS Advanced High Strength Steels CP Complex Phase DP Dual Phase EDX Energy Dispersive X-Ray FSW Friction Stir Welding FW Friction Welding GTAW Gas Tungsten Arc Welding HAZ Heat Affected Zone HFSW Hybrid Friction Stir Welding IMCs Intermetallic Compounds MART Martensitic OM Optical Microscopy PCBN Polycrystalline Cubic Boron Nitride SEM Scanning Electron Microscopy TMAZ Thermomechanically Affected Zone TWB Tailored Welded Blanks USMW Ultrasonic Metallic Welding UTS Ultimate Tensile Strength YS Yield Strength 4 Contents Abbreviations and Acronyms 4 1 Introduction 14 1.1 Welding aluminium to steel . 14 1.2 Methodology and objectives . 16 1.3 Structure of the thesis . 17 2 Literature review 18 2.1 Introduction . 18 2.2 Technological solutions for dissimilar joints between aluminium alloy and steel . 18 2.2.1 Mechanical joining based solutions . 18 2.2.2 Laser welding . 20 2.2.3 Ultrasonic welding . 21 2.2.4 Friction stir spot welding . 22 2.2.5 Friction stir welding . 23 2.3 Friction stir welding characterization of joining dissimilar ma- terials . 24 2.3.1 Dissimilar base materials and its application . 24 2.3.2 Tools . 25 2.3.3 FSW parameters . 26 2.3.3.1 Effects of travel speed and rotation speed . 26 2.3.3.2 Effects of plunge depth . 26 2.3.3.3 Effects of tool tilt angle . 27 2.4 Current development of FSW . 27 2.4.1 GTAW assisted FSW . 27 2.4.2 Electrically assisted FSW . 28 2.5 Summary . 31 5 3 Experimental plan and conditions 32 3.1 Introduction . 32 3.2 Experimental plan . 32 3.2.1 Overall welding plan . 32 3.2.2 Conventional lap joint concept . 34 3.2.3 Innovative lap joint concept . 34 3.3 Selected base materials . 37 3.4 FSW experimental conditions . 38 3.4.1 FSW tool and other equipments . 38 3.4.1.1 FSW tools . 39 3.4.1.2 Clamping system . 39 3.4.1.3 Roller . 41 3.4.2 Parameters . 42 3.5 Test methods and conditions . 43 3.5.1 Superficial inspection . 43 3.5.2 Microstructural analysis . 43 3.5.3 Microhardness tests . 45 3.5.4 Mechanical tests . 45 3.6 Summary . 47 4 Analysis of Results 49 4.1 Introduction . 49 4.2 Conventional lap joint concept . 49 4.2.1 Superficial inspection . 49 4.2.2 Microstructure analysis . 50 4.2.3 Microhardness tests . 57 4.2.4 Mechanical tests . 59 4.3 Innovative lap joint concept . 62 4.3.1 Superficial inspection . 62 4.3.2 Microstructure analysis . 62 4.3.3 Microhardness tests . 69 4.3.4 Mechanical tests . 72 4.4 Global analysis . 74 4.4.1 Superficial inspection . 74 4.4.2 Microstructure analysis . 75 4.4.3 Microhardness tests . 78 4.4.4 Mechanical tests . 79 4.5 Multi-pass welds . 80 4.5.1 Superficial inspection . 80 4.5.2 Microstructure analysis . 81 4.5.3 Mechanical tests . 84 6 4.6 Summary . 87 5 Final Remarks 89 5.1 Conclusions . 89 5.2 Future developments . 91 A Engineering drawing of the FSW tool components 98 A.1 FSW tool's shoulder . 99 A.2 FSW tool's probe . 100 7 List of Tables 3.1 Summary of FSW tests: lap joint configurations of single pass weld joint and multi-pass weld joint for both conventional and innovative lap joint concepts. 33 3.2 Chemical composition of the AA5754-H22 aluminium alloy and DX54 steel [35]. 38 3.3 Mechanical properties of the AA5754-H22 aluminium alloy and DX54 steel. YS stands for yield strength, UTS stands for ultimate tensile strength. 39 3.4 Welding parameters for the conventional and the innovative friction stir lap joints. 43 8 List of Figures 1.1 The comparison of tensile strength between HFSW and FSW at different tool rotation speeds [10]. 16 2.1 Illustration of selected mechanical joining processes for auto- motive applications. (a) clinching with static die (b) self-pierce riveting (c) high-speed bolt joining [16]. 19 2.2 Schematic illustration of the steel/aluminium welding set up [7]. 20 2.3 (a) schematic demonstration of ultrasonic spot welding, (b) flat serrated sonotrode tip touching aluminium and (c) domed shaped serrated bottom sonotrode tip touching steel [17]. 22 2.4 Schematic illustration of friction stir spot welding [22]. 23 2.5 Schematic of the process: friction stir overlap welding process[26]. 24 2.6 Different FSW tool geometries used in the experiment [30]. 26 2.7 Schematic illustration of HFSW process [10]. 28 2.8 Schematic illustration of the experimental configuration for the electrically assisted FSW process [27]. 29 2.9 Schematic illustration of the experimental configuration for the electrically assisted FSW process [27]. 30 2.10 Temperature distribution at 10 s for the asymmetric electrodes configuration [27]. 30 3.1 The arrangement of specimens for tensile shear test, metallur- gical analysis and microhardness test. T stands for specimens for tensile shear test, M stands for specimens for metallurgical analysis and microhardness test. 34 3.2 The arrangement of specimens for peel test. P stands for spec- imens for peel test. 35 3.3 The arrangement of specimens for the multi-pass welds. T stands for specimens for tensile shear test, M stands for spec- imens for optical microscopic observation. 35 9 3.4 Symmetric lap joint configuration with conventional joint in- terface. 36 3.5 Asymmetric lap joint configuration with conventional joint in- terface. 36 3.6 Initial lap joint concept. 37 3.7 Final lap joint concept. 38 3.8 FSW tool. 40 3.9 Shank. 40 3.10 Shoulder. 40 3.11 Probe. 40 3.12 Schematic of symmetric lap joint clamping configuration. 41 3.13 Schematic of asymmetric lap joint clamping configuration. 41 3.14 The engineering drawing of the roller. 42 3.15 FSW machine. 44 3.16 Tensile shear specimen.